Adventure Pioneers

Two Australian pioneers of travel photography and film continue to inspire artists and travellers today with their adventures and exploration of previously un-documented territories.

Showman Captain Frank Hurley and modest Sir Hubert Wilkins both shared a dream of documenting life in difficult and sometimes life-threatening situations. The two men lived almost parallel lives and today continue to be a source of inspiration for people's own travels.

Captain "Frank" Hurley OBE

James Francis (Frank) Hurley was born in Glebe, Sydney on October 15, 1885 and showed an early interest in photography, joining a local postcard company in 1905, a trade he would later fall back on. Hurley joined the 1911 Australasian Antarctic Expedition of Douglas Mawson as photographer and upon his return in 1914 set out again with Ernest Shackleton on his now-legendary Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition that became marooned in the ice of the Weddel Sea. When the survivors finally abandoned ship, Hurley fought with Shackleton to retain his precious glass plate negatives, arguing that they would be needed to tell the story - should they survive or not. His famous documentary film South is the result.

Hurley was a showman who made full use of the available technology and travelled widely to exhibit his films. Some of his methods were controversial, but nevertheless, he received critical acclaim and commercial success for his adventurous exploits, including the sensational Pearls and Savages filmed during his two extensive trips into Papua New Guinea in primitive floatplanes between 1920 and 1923. Hurley clashed with the new wave of daring filmmakers who saw him as old-fashioned and eccentric, but he continued to produce everything from government documentaries to landscapes. A self-styled loner, he retained the title of Captain to enhance his profile until he died in Sydney in 1962.

Sir George Hubert Wilkins MC (and Bar>

Born near Adelaide in 1888, George Hubert Wilkins was the youngest of a large pioneering rural family and, disheartened by the harsh farm life, set out for Sydney, then England, to find his fortune. By 1912, he was on the front line, filming the Balkan War.

From that moment on, Wilkins' life was one of almost non-stop adventure, exploration and discovery. After returning from a controversial arctic expedition, he worked under Hurley in the trenches of World War I, often photographing forward of enemy lines and having many narrow escapes. Australian Commander General Sir John Monash described him as the bravest man he had ever seen. Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross and Bar.Wilkins returned to exploration and aviation, making numerous daring and groundbreaking flights at both ends of the earth. He also spent many months living with un-contacted tribes of Aborigines while under assignment from the British Museum. For this and his other work, he was knighted by King George V in 1928.

His collaboration with media magnate Randolph Hearst led him to travel around the world on the German airship Graf Zeppelin, attempt to take an old US submarine under the ice to the North Pole and make yet more trips to the Antarctic with his friend and benefactor, Lincoln Ellsworth.A man of enormous integrity and honour, Wilkins' lack of fame was described by one contemporary as a result of "his aggressive modesty".

He died quietly and suddenly of heart failure in his hotel room in 1958 and his ashes were scattered at the North Pole by US submariners as a mark of respect.

Tips: Aurora Expeditions, Quark and Hapag-Lloyd are famous for enriching historical cruises.

Written by Roderick Eime, Issue 25 Spring 2006